After the Post Office scandal, do you feel safe with a DWP "police force"?

DWP already have quite a few legal powers where they suspect fraud in any of the benefits they administer.

I’m interested to know where they “act unethically” ?? I used to work for the DWP and my daughter still does. I haven’t any former colleagues whom I believe “act unethically” I’ve known staff who stick to the letter of the law and are very black and white in their approach.

I was never like this.

AGAA4

We don't know how the system will work yet. If AI flags a potential fraud will there be a further check before someone is called in for interview?
Otherwise there could be long queues as they are short staffed. It is all conjecture at the moment.

It’s not DWP but the banks themselves who will be using AI to monitor claimants’ accounts. Anything flagged up will be reported to DWP and it will be they who decide on what action will be taken. Lots of people saying they don’t believe one off payments will be scrutinised. The will likely depend on how sensitively the AI software has been programmed. Low level fraud adds up so I wouldn’t rule anything out.

How about the man with one lung, when they falsified his results when they were testing him?
Immediately his mobility car was taken back, causing him no end of difficulties?

Cossy

DWP already have quite a few legal powers where they suspect fraud in any of the benefits they administer.

I’m interested to know where they “act unethically” ?? I used to work for the DWP and my daughter still does. I haven’t any former colleagues whom I believe “act unethically” I’ve known staff who stick to the letter of the law and are very black and white in their approach.

I was never like this.

At the moment I think DWP need a court order to obtain details of claimants’ bank accounts, which slows down investigations.

One of the aims of this bill is to speed up the process of detecting and prosecuting fraud, but the minister for DWP has given assurances that they will respect claimants’ privacy and will act in accordance with the data protection act in not accessing bank accounts unless they have been flagged for suspicious activity. It depends on the interpretation of ‘suspicious’ and on what AI has been programmed to pick up, doesn’t it ?

I have written 2 posts and they seem to have disappeared

German shepherds mug,what I'm saying is why do they need even more evidence when there are all his medical records they have.
Of course I know they need evidence ,but his GP is partly to blame as he hasn't replied to their email or phone calls
I already have a complaint in against my son's Gp as he refused to send him for an X-ray before his stroke saying a back injury was muscular,which after he stroke he was found to have 2 hip fractures and crushed spine
The Specialist in the stroke unit said his stroke was a direct result of not being diagnosed with fractures,,and he was in agony for 9 months ,and given co codamol,he is now on 15mg of morphine

Apologies,should say German shepherds mum

That's not entirely true Pammie although it is difficult to see who you think will "flag up" what.

The bank will do a download of the account. They will not be involved with any analysis. They will perform a simple data dump of everyone's account where at least one description contains your National Insurance number. They will send the data electronically to the DWP. The DWP will use their software to analyse this.

Will their programme efficiently remove those only receiving the State Pension? Will they destroy that data? It is not illegal for them to use that data or forward it to another department.

Who will supply the analytical programme to find the "anomalies"? We know the government has continued to use Fujitsu since the issues have been uncovered.

What will be the approach of the DWP? The Post Office, supported by Fujitsu, put the recovery of so-called "losses" ahead of the law. We have seen this happen already with PIP, etc.

Now the Post Office has had to open their books, we can see just how wrongly the Post Office law enforcement team has behaved. Why should we have any more trust in another private law enforcement team when we know "he who pays the piper calls the tune"? Why would any of the under-experienced, underqualified and under-trained force do any better than POL?

The Post Office prosecutions were said by those representing some of the Sub-postmasters to be" deeply and fundamentally flawed". What will be the management and oversight? It is already biased towards the reputation of the DWP and its "successes".

Who will support those picked up by the software, and how will they get the information they need? The Post Office denied legally supported access to information. The Post Office have been ^"wilfully blind to, or disregarding of the proper lawful administration of justice". Many people feel the DWP is already behaving in this way.

If the Police knock on your door, there is a separate Police Complaints Office you can go to. There was no such separate entity to hold the Post Office law enforcement body to account. For its victims, it was rather like living in the Wild West.

There is no such body to hold the DWP to account either.

They disregard and override medical submissions in some cases Germanshepherdsmum. Apparently untrained administrators know better.

In 2023 the success rates for benefits appeals overall was 62%. PIP alone was 69%. This does not account for the fact that they worst cases may well drop out as the simply cannot cope with the perversity of the system.

The backlog of benefits appeals is continuing to rise. The number of appeals waiting to be heard rose by 79% last year, and now stands at a total of 67,000.

The Nazis believed that disabled people did not, and could not, be a part of the German master race. They believed that they were genetically ‘impure’, and a financial burden on the state. You could be excused for thinking they have come back to run the DWP, aided by this Government who allow this.

Yes DAR they sometimes override medical submissions but on the claimants behalf. Some doctors will state the claimant is fit for work when they clearly aren't and they get their benefits.
To call the DWP staff Nazis is just unbelievable.

They override doctors assessments to ensure people get back to work.
I know.
They did it to me.
Wrote to my gp as well, telling him not to issue anymore sick notes.

So, I didnt have the luxury of taking things "one day at a time", off to work, crying most of the way there, and frequently through the day.
Couldn't attend counselling, or any bereavement groups, and ended up with PTSD.

I think people don't understand bereavement. I was allowed 3 days off when my husband died after a long and gruelling illness. I took a week of my own leave but was then back at work. It was awful.
They should take bereavement more seriously.

MissAdventure

They override doctors assessments to ensure people get back to work.
I know.
They did it to me.
Wrote to my gp as well, telling him not to issue anymore sick notes.

So, I didnt have the luxury of taking things "one day at a time", off to work, crying most of the way there, and frequently through the day.
Couldn't attend counselling, or any bereavement groups, and ended up with PTSD.

They must be working under legal rules - or perhaps not, the Post Office ignored them. So I would have to ask why it has it be decided that they can override the evidence- in either direction!?

This is not how a legally based institution should work.

I can understand that I wasnt ill, but I was also nowhere near ready to go back to work.
Water under the bridge now, but they certainly made everything worse than it already was, insisting I did a cv, attended the job centre weekly, and all those other things I couldn't have cared less about.

AGAA4

Yes DAR they sometimes override medical submissions but on the claimants behalf. Some doctors will state the claimant is fit for work when they clearly aren't and they get their benefits.
To call the DWP staff Nazis is just unbelievable.

I don't know who DAR is but I hope she replies to you at some point AGGY

A doctor's assessment is only part of the evidence. They only have a short time to assess someone as they are very busy people.
The claimant themselves give evidence and are seen regularly by DWP staff.
It's up to the examiner of all the evidence to decide whether benefit is given or continued.

Yes, based on facts.
It's often just that their facts bear little resemblance to the truth.

youtu.be/qhLZ9ewbm8g?si=u7XsaOSYjltllkiU

You can't condemn the whole DWP on one case.

It's far, far more than one case.

In the video I posted, the persons father asks how one person can have all the knowledge that is possessed by the team of people that look after his sons health.
Simple answer is, one person can't possibly.

The assessments aren't done by one person only.
As others have said this thread has been started for the sole purpose of scaremongering.

They stopped my daughter's ESA in October 2022. They told me she could no longer claim it, even though I knew she could. In October 2023 I applied for universal credit because the matter wasn't being resolved. My MP has got involved and they paid 8k into her bank account (it is in my name as she lacks mental capacity) They sent me a letter saying they had underpaid from the period October 2022 - October 2023. They have lied to my MP saying they only hadn't paid her for two weeks. The other payment of 8k was for SDP (severe disability premium) underpaid, even though I have a letter saying it was for ESA. I doubt we would have got a payment at all if the MP hadn't got involved as they just kept lying to me (and I sent letters as well as making phonecalls) The woman from the ESA who actually helped me said that the whole year of records showed the money going out of their system but it wasn't going into our account. God knows what has happened but they are not being open about it with me or my MP. I am going to send copies of the letters to the MP for him to see they have told him different to me. I doubt we are an isolated case.

This is quite outing but I feel I need to post it as mistakes are obviously being made. The DWP keep focussing on change of address but no one had moved

Just to be clear no payments for ESA were paid from October 2022 onwards. She owed the council over 2k in contribution to care payments and I had to take a loan off the DWP/UC to get some money into her account.